The Makeover
by klasiccat
Summary: Lester gets on Steph's last nerve and she exacts her revenge. Warning for language only. Babe story, Joe doesn't even appear.


This was originally posted as a challenge piece on the Plum sites.

This is a Babe story, but that really isn't the focal point. I was originally going to include this in 'Broken Road' but thought it was better as a stand-alone.

The only other warning is for language. It's amazing the potty mouths men have! I'm so glad none of us talk that way!

Thanks to my wonderful Partner, Xylia for her beta skills. She keeps me from looking stupid.

General disclaimer: Yeah, it's all hers, none of it is mine. Just playing.

Enjoy!

**THE MAKEOVER**

"So, does anyone have anything else they wish to discuss?" Ranger asked. It was their end of the week staff meeting and he wanted to wrap it up and get to work. When there was no response, Ranger said, "Fine, then get to work."

"You doing anything wild this weekend, Beautiful?" Lester asked Steph as she gathered her notes from the meeting.

"Nah, we're probably just going to spend a quiet weekend at the beach house. You got plans?" Steph asked.

"Going out clubbing." Lester had a shit-eating grin going and wagged his eyebrows.

Steph rolled her eyes. "You mean 'trolling,' don't you?" Lester eyebrows just danced that cocky little dance once more. Someone in the room snorted, probably Tank. "Didn't you go clubbing last weekend, too?"

"Yeah. What's your point?" Lester loved getting Stephanie all riled up. It was just too easy.

"From what I heard, you were dripping in blondes with fake boobs and no brains." Steph took up a defensive stance, with her arms folded across her chest.

"Oh yeah, Santos was in rare form last weekend," Bobby offered. "He really worked the room."

"I still don't see what the problem is, Beautiful." Lester kept grinning at her.

"Do you even remember the name of the girl you did in the backseat of the SUV?" Stephanie huffed.

"Which one?"

Tank barked out in laughter.

"God, Les. You're such a whore," Steph said in disgust. Lester just wiggled his eyebrows at her again. Stephanie's patience was just about shot.

"Babe, why do you do this?" Ranger had come up behind Stephanie when he saw that she was getting aggravated.

"Santos is a slut," Stephanie said flatly.

"Yeah. That was established a long time ago," Ranger responded, nonplussed.

"What? Just because you two want to tie yourselves to each other doesn't mean I can't play the field." Lester shrugged and still had that stupid grin on his face.

Ranger shook his head slightly and walked out. There was no arguing with Santos and Ranger had better things to do. Stephanie, however, wasn't finished.

"Play the field? You _are_ the field."

"What can I say, Bomber? Life is good." Lester kissed her cheek, wagged his eyebrows at her yet again and made for the door.

Stephanie narrowed her eyes at the back of his head. "I swear, Lester. You wag those damned eyebrows at me one more time, I will remove them," she threatened as he walked out of the conference room.

Lester turned around in the doorway. "You'll have to catch me first, Beautiful," Lester teased. Then he turned on his heel and strode down the hall.

"That sounded like a challenge to me, Bomber," Tank chuckled. "You going to let it go unanswered?"

"Oh, hell no. That boy is going down." Stephanie was still glaring at the spot where Lester had stood and mocked her.

Tank and Bobby looked at each other and grinned. If it was one thing they knew, Stephanie Plum always got her man.

As Steph left the conference room and made her way to her desk, she saw Hector and smiled.

"Hola, Hector," Stephanie said sweetly.

"Hola, Chica," Hector greeted in return.

"Do you have a minute? I need a favor."

Monday morning found everyone back at work and back to the old grind. Stephanie was even well rested for a change. Weekends at the beach house usually included as much sleep as it did clothes, which was very little. However, Ranger had a rather large proposal he'd been working on so Steph had been left to her own devices. Which meant she had plenty of time to plan Lester's downfall. And…plan she did.

"Hey there, Beautiful. You look like you had a good weekend," Lester said as Stephanie walked into the kitchen to get some water and a mid-morning snack. He was sitting at the table with Cal and Bobby.

"Hey Lester, thank you, I did. How was your weekend, dare I ask?" Steph gave him a wary look. Lester broke out into a shit-eating grin and Steph just rolled her eyes. "Do you even bother getting the names of the girls you take advantage of, Les?"

"Sometimes." He was being cocky and he knew it.

"Do you ever remember them?" Stephanie glared at Lester.

"Nope. Cuts down on the confusion that way." Cal reached across the table and smacked Lester in the back of the head. "Hey!" Lester complained. "I mean, come on. It's not like I'm having meaningful relationships with them. It's not what they want anyway. We're just having a good time. There is nothing wrong with that."

"Yeah, until your dick falls off." Stephanie retorted.

Cal spewed the water he was drinking across the table and hit Lester on the arm. Lester yelped and shot out of his chair while Bobby practically fell out of his, laughing.

"Son of a bitch, Cal! Learn to swallow." Lester grabbed a towel and tried to dry himself off.

"Yeah, I bet you say that to all the girls, too," Stephanie said flatly.

Lester stared at her in stunned silence. Cal roared in laughter and poor Bobby finally fell out of his chair and hit the floor with a thud.

"What the hell is going on in here?" Tank's booming voice bounced off the walls of the tiny kitchen, making everyone's ears ring.

Stephanie wheeled around and pinned Tank with a stare. "Lester's an ass!"

"No shit. But that doesn't explain why Bobby is on the floor and Cal looks like he's about to wet himself."

"Just leaving happiness and sunshine everywhere I go, Tank," Stephanie said, as she brushed past him to return to her desk.

Tank smiled as he watched Stephanie leave the kitchen. But, when he turned his attention back to Santos, he scowled. "Clean up this mess before you get your ass back to work. And, somebody get Brown off the floor!"

Cal hauled Bobby out of the kitchen and dropped him off at his office, leaving Lester to clean up the water. After the crack he had made, Cal figured Les deserved it. Before returning to his own desk, though, he stopped by Stephanie's. She looked up and smiled when he knocked on the side of her cubicle wall.

"Everything all set, Bomber?" Cal asked, with a slightly evil gleam in his eyes.

"Yup. You still on monitors this afternoon?" Steph really needed him there today.

"Affirmative. You really think you can pull this off?" It wasn't that Cal doubted her. He knew Steph was on a mission and when she put her mind to something, it got done. He just wanted to make sure everything was ready.

"If all goes well, it'll be like shooting fish in a barrel. You just let me know when he's on the control room floor. Here, take this bag." Stephanie opened a desk drawer and pulled out a paper bag, handing it to Cal. "Keep this with you. I'll need it when Les gets into the control room."

"Sure thing, Bomber," Cal said, taking the bag and looking at it. "What's inside?"

"Supplies, and NO peeking. Do you understand?" Stephanie ordered.

"No peeking, right. Guard it with my life, got it. This better be good, Sweetheart." As if it wouldn't be, Cal thought.

Several hours went by. Everyone was back from lunch and Stephanie was at her desk feeling antsy. Just when she thought Cal wasn't going to call, her cell phone chirped with a text message. She looked at the read out. 'He's here.'

Stephanie took a large ring out of her purse and slipped it on her right hand. The ring was beautiful; an oval shaped mother-of-pearl stone placed on a high setting. Stephanie then calmly got up from her desk and walked to the control room where she found Lester talking to the guys on the monitors, Cal being one of them.

As Stephanie approached Lester, she spun the ring around on her hand so that the stone was facing inward and flipped it open with her thumb. Then she called out to Lester.

"Hey, Les. Can I see to you for a minute?" Steph was all business. Less suspicious that way.

"Sure, Beautiful. What do you need?" Lester was always happy to lend a helping hand, or any other body part for that matter.

"Well," she started, as she placed her right hand on his arm just below the short sleeve of his t-shirt and squeezed.

Lester felt a tiny prick and then the room started to spin. He could hear voices around him but couldn't focus on any particular one. Then everything went black.

Stephanie tried to keep Lester's body from crashing to the floor but it wasn't easy. Hal jumped up from his seat at the monitors and helped Steph with Lester's limp body.

"We need a medic in here, stat!" Hal shouted.

"Belay that order!" Steph shouted out. "Cal, the bag, now." Stephanie closed the stone on the ring, hiding the tiny needle that carried a strong sedative set inside then took the bag from Cal.

"What do you mean, 'belay that order?' Santos is out cold." Hal was beginning to panic. Steph was going against protocol and he couldn't understand why. He also couldn't understand why Cal was still in his seat with a shit-eating grin on his face.

"He's exactly the way I want him, Hal. Don't worry, he's fine." Stephanie began pulling items out of the paper bag; a bottle of water, a small makeup bag, a cold wax kit and an electric razor. When Hal saw the razor, realization hit and the same grin Cal had was now on his face.

"Need any help, Bomber?" Hal asked all calm and collected.

"Just keep his head steady. Cal, are the cameras rolling in here?" Stephanie shot a quick glance to Cal.

"You're all set, Bomber," Cal answered. He had checked the cameras twice before alerting Stephanie of Lester's presence.

Bobby burst into the control room with his medical bag with Tank and Ranger on his heels. He dropped down next to Stephanie and opened his bag.

"I've got this one, Bobby," Steph said as she began opening the wax kit. Bobby looked back and forth between Lester and the items on the floor and stifled laughter.

"What did you give him, Steph?" Bobby asked, as he began to check his vitals.

"I don't know," she shrugged. When she saw Bobby's eyes bug out of his head she continued. "Hector gave me something to knock him out." She pulled off her ring and handed it to Bobby. "Here. It's in this." Stephanie turned her attention back to Lester and continued her work.

Bobby flipped open the stone and examined the inside. "Well, it doesn't hold much. I'd say you've got about five minutes, maybe a little more."

"That's what Hector said, so I need to work fast." Stephanie took the wax strips out of the box and began to apply them to Lester's eyebrows.

In the few moments that it took Lester to hit the floor and for Steph to begin administering her payback, the control room floor had filled up with every available Rangeman.

"Babe?"

Steph didn't even look up at Ranger. "He threw down the challenge, Ranger. I'm just answering it."

When Stephanie got the first wax strip placed on Lester's eyebrow, she pressed firmly to ensure even distribution of the wax. When satisfied, Stephanie grabbed the strip and quickly yanked it off Lester's face. A chorus of groans and curses filled the control room.

"Oh, fuck man!" Binkie cursed.

"She just ripped his hair right out of his head!" Tank couldn't believe it.

"That's just wrong, man." Ram took a step backward.

"Damn, Bomber! Remind me never to piss you off," Bobby said through laughter.

"You're my hero." Hal was loving every minute of Steph's revenge. Finally, the guys would have someone new to harass twenty-four-seven.

Stephanie got the other strip placed and repeated the procedure. Again, when she ripped off the strip, the guys groaned and laughed and were grateful that none of them were her current victim.

"Time," Steph called out.

"You're two and a half minutes in," Cal answered.

"Damn, I'm running out of time." Steph threw the wax kit and the trash in the paper bag and grabbed the razor. She turned it on and began shaving the last bits of eyebrow hairs.

"Why didn't you just use the razor in the first place?" Hal asked.

"Because the wax pulls the entire hair follicle out, therefore, it takes longer to grow back. The razor only cuts the surface and the hair will start to grow back immediately. Waxing is much more effective," Stephanie explained.

"And meaner," someone said from the back.

"He deserves it."

"Amen!"

Steph just smiled. Yeah, Santos had this coming and everyone knew it.

"Alright. That's the last of it," Steph announced as she put the razor in the bag.

"Are you finished?" Hal asked.

"Not quite," Steph said with an evil smile. She grabbed the small makeup bag and opened it up.

"What's that?" Cal asked, straining his neck so he could see better.

"Moisturizer. His skin will be sensitive from the wax. Especially since this is his first time," Steph explained, as if this was an everyday occurrence.

"Sensitive? Ya think?" Tank asked. "You just ripped that shit right off of his face. It's a damn good thing he's unconscious."

Steph turned to Tank. "Now imagine a Brazilian bikini wax."

"A what?" Tank asked.

"It's where they wax the entire crotch, man," Bobby offered.

Tank was stunned into silence, grabbed the side of the desk he was leaning on and actually paled. Ranger took one look at him and busted out laughing.

"You do that shit?" Tank whispered.

Stephanie just shrugged and turned back to Lester. She applied a generous amount of the cream and worked it into Lester's skin. Then she pulled out an eyebrow pencil from the makeup bag.

"Now what are you going to do?" Hal asked.

"I'm going to draw his eyebrows back on." Stephanie leaned down and began to draw a thin, brown arch high above each of Lester's eyes.

"And women do this to themselves?" Binkie asked.

"Everyday," Steph said as she drew the second arch.

"But why? It seems like an awful lot of trouble to have your eyebrows ripped from your face just to have them drawn back on again." Binkie just couldn't see the logic in it.

"Because it makes us look pretty," Steph explain. "There, all done." She put the remaining items, except for the water, back in the bag and returned it to Cal who stowed it in a desk drawer.

Hal looked down at Lester and inspected Stephanie's handiwork. When he looked back at Steph, he was grinning from ear to ear. "Damn, Bomber. His eyebrows look like Connie's." The entire room burst into howls of laughter.

"Time?" Steph asked Cal.

"Five minutes, fifteen. You're good." Cal grinned at her.

"Thanks. Now we just wait for him to wake up. It shouldn't take long."

Within thirty seconds, Lester began to stir. Bobby moved over closer to Les and began to check his vitals again. When Bobby was satisfied that Lester was still okay, he began talking to him.

"Hey, Les. Man, can you hear me? Open your eyes for me, buddy."

"Wha… what the hell… what happened?" Lester stuttered. He was still very groggy but he was beginning to move around and wanted to sit up.

"Take it easy, buddy. You just passed out." Bobby was holding Les steady so he wouldn't crash back to the floor.

"Hey there," Stephanie cooed. "You scared the hell out of me. Here, drink a little of this." Stephanie held the water bottle up to his lips and helped Les take a sip.

When he was finished, Les managed to get himself in a sitting position. "What happened?"

"I wanted to talk to you about some surveillance issues and then you just passed out. Are you sick? Do you think you have the flu?" Stephanie was putting on an award-winning performance but some of the other guys were a little hard pressed at keeping a straight face. Some literally had their hands on their mouths to keep from laughing. Fortunately, they were standing behind Lester so he was none the wiser.

"Well, I feel like a truck ran over me," Lester admitted.

"Do you think you can stand?" Bobby asked.

"I think so. I'm beginning to feel a little better. Maybe if I can throw some water on my face, it might perk me up a bit."

Bobby helped Lester to his feet. In doing so, Lester's body turned and the guys who had been standing behind him finally got a full view of Lester's makeover.

Everyone stopped breathing. Binkie had to leave the control room. He just couldn't take it anymore. Tank slugged Ram to keep him quiet. Ranger remained as stoic as ever but both Tank and Steph knew he was dying on the inside.

When Les was finally standing, he was still a bit wobbly but he was holding his own. When Lester turned to Stephanie, she plastered a smile on her face, which was full of love and concern but had to bite her inner cheek to keep from laughing.

"Come on, buddy. Let's get you to the bathroom and then maybe you should think about staying in bed for awhile, alone," Bobby teased. It almost did the entire room in.

"Oh, ha ha. Very funny. I feel like shit, man. Sex is the last thing I want right now," Lester admitted, as they left the control room.

'Good, because you're not going to be getting it for a while,' Steph thought to herself, with an evil grin.

Ranger finally walked up to Stephanie and put his arm around her shoulder then he turned to Cal.

"Did you get all that?" Ranger asked.

"Every last, beautiful second of it," Cal smiled.

Ranger turned back to Stephanie and nuzzled her ear, whispering, "You never disappoint, Babe. Now, run." Ranger released her.

"What?" At first, Steph didn't realize what Ranger said to her. Then came the blood curdling scream from the bathroom.

"Run!" Ranger ordered.

"Shit!" Stephanie cursed and took off like a shot down the hall to the stairs with Cal close behind.

Lester was trying to get out of the bathroom to haul ass after her but Bobby was standing in his way, trying to buy Steph a little extra time. In his weakened state, Les had to settle for screaming at Stephanie as she and Cal hit the stairwell.

"Damn it, Stephanie! What the fuck did you do? I'll get you for this!" Lester continued to struggle against Bobby. "Let me go, you bastard. I swear I'm going to kill her! Stephanie!"

"Put him in a holding cell and let him cool down," Ranger ordered Binkie and Ram.

Tank came up along side Ranger and watched as Lester was dragged, literally kicking and screaming, into the elevator to the holding cells. "There's going to be hell to pay, boss," Tank sighed.

"Santos brought it on himself. He knows better than to challenge Stephanie like that," Ranger said.

"Yeah, but he's going to be looking for some payback. Then Bomber's not going to let that slide and she'll be laying for him again. Those two are going to tear this place apart, with everyone in it, going after each other," Tank said.

"There will be no retribution from Santos. I'll see to it personally," Ranger stated.

"Yeah, and you let me know how that works out for you, okay?" Tank quipped.

Unfortunately, Tank was right and Ranger knew it. With a heavy sigh, Ranger headed down to the holding cells to try to reason with Santos. Ranger stopped in his tracks and started laughing.

How was he going to reason with a guy who had painted on eyebrows?


End file.
